Twenty-something poet based in NW England. Trying to say what everybody feels.

25 Lessons In 25 Years: The 25th Lesson

Lesson 25: This Is Just The Beginning

The reason I saved this one until last, and until the day of my twenty-fifth birthday, is that I think it’s the most important, and the one that needs to be screamed from the rooftops.

Twenty five is scary. For me it certainly is. People keep saying to me but you’re so young. I have to say; I don’t feel it. Especially this year, I feel like life is passing me by a little bit. If you asked me what I did in 2015 – I graduated from my undergraduate degree; 2016 – I graduated from my masters degree; 2017 – I got my first “real” job; 2018 – ???. I don’t really feel like I’ve taken my life forward in any significant way this year, and that’s difficult for me to get my head around.

I mean, I started this blog, and I’ve managed to attract over two hundred of you lovely people into reading it. I started putting my poetry out there into the world. So I guess that’s something?

As many of these notes have said, sometimes it feels like everything should have fallen into place by now. It hasn’t though; and that’s okay. Life would be very boring if we had everything completely figured out, the path completely mapped, by the time we were 25… wouldn’t it? There’s a famous picture floating around somewhere stating that Oprah was fired from her first journalism job when she was 24, that Alan Rickman didn’t start acting until he was in his late forties… there are many others on that list as well, making it very clear that life doesn’t have to be completely sorted at the age of 21.

I’m excited for everything that is yet to come; for the people I have yet to meet, the friends I have yet to make, the places I’m going to go, the books I’ll read… the list could go on. That’s what life is about, not just counting the things that we have already done, but to be excited for all the things we have yet to do. This is true whether you’re twenty-five or ninety-five; there is always something else to learn, to do, to find.

There is a possibility for excitement in the next 25 seconds, minutes, hours, days… never mind years. That time length is mind-boggling. I’m excited to see what happens next, and in that sense I’m very glad that I don’t have it all mapped out.

I hope the cake is good. For me, 25 was still a student, living in Hackney. There was a sudden massive heavy snowfall, so it was a snowball fight followed by a Malaysian banquet with friends. One of the very few things I can still remember from so long ago…

Happy Birthday! It’s crazy but I’m 25 too (my birthday was way back in January so I’ve been 25 for a long while now). And I feel like you do where I’m still trying to sort my life out. I have my college degree, but I don’t have a job in my field yet (even though I am working). But I’m still trying to figure things out along with making sure to pay off my student loans.

Hope you had the best birthday–and cake! Almost 20 years your senior–did I really just write that?!–I can say that the figuring out never stops. If you can see the excitement in each step, you’ll be all the happier for it! (And I do think celebrating 2018 as your year of the blog and getting your poetry in front of an audience seems very appropriate!)